


Missing the Music: Song Use in SPN

by yourlibrarian



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Inspired by Music, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-03
Updated: 2009-10-03
Packaged: 2017-10-02 12:31:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I've been mentioning recently in my reviews how much I've been missing the music of SPN in the episodes. As we all know, they were meant to be an integral part of the series, both as part of its retro feel, and also in telling us who these characters are. Out of curiosity I went and did a count, to see if we really are losing more music each season and this is what I came up with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missing the Music: Song Use in SPN

I've been mentioning recently in my reviews how much I've been missing the music of SPN in the episodes. As we all know, they were meant to be an integral part of the series, both as part of its retro feel, and also in telling us who these characters are. Out of curiosity I went and did a count, to see if we really are losing more music each season and this is what I came up with:

Season 1: 56  
Season 2: 41  
Season 3: 13 (in 16 episodes)  
Season 4: 16 (in 17 episodes so far)

I'm sure everyone has favorite songs in the series. I definitely have my own, but I wanted to think about what we're losing when we don't have music, which goes beyond just having a kick soundtrack. So, just for fun, I decided to do a little meta on what the 10 most significant uses of music have been so far. I'd love to hear your choices!

I need to mention I'm not going to include songs which were used only for recaps, because what I want to look at here is the music's use within the episode itself, although I am going to make a nod to one of those.

1) "Ramblin' Man" (Pilot and In the Beginning)

The first of three songs that have appeared twice in the series (along with Wayward Son), this song is also a bit of an "origin" theme. These songs are theme songs in the series, emblematic of the characters themselves, rather than being key to a particular episode. I put Ramblin' Man first because it said so much about the whole family, especially John and Dean, which is why I think it made its reappearance in that 70s diner in ItB when the two are reunited. The song is all about someone who's been raised in an itinerant family, and while neither son was born in a bus nor the Impala (presumably), they are all tied to the road. The song also makes mention of heading down to New Orleans, which may be why Dean just visited it. Although this is a Southern, not Midwestern song, I think it was chosen for its lower/working class tone, and meant as a representation of the Winchesters' status on the fringes of society. We also know both John and Dean have done their share of living through gambling, and in the scene where it's first used, Sam is talking about their latest means of supporting themselves, fraud.

2) "Back in Black" (Pilot and Bloodlust)

Back in Black was very much a Sam and Dean reunion song in the Pilot, the episode that used more songs than any other. The two are back in the Impala, working a case together, and while it'll still be a while before they come together, Sam is about to start sliding back into the lifestyle in that scene. Later in Bloodlust, the Impala, who looked to be as much of a goner as Dean at the start of the season, is back on the road with the boys aboard, looking lovelier than ever. In a way, Bloodlust was the real kickoff of Season 2. IMToD was all about the fallout from Devil's Trap and the culmination of the S1 mytharc. ELaC was a setup for the season, but Sam and Dean went to work a case just to kill time. Bloodlust was the first episode where Sam and Dean were out on their own again as an intentional team. They were no longer looking for John, or following some tip he had given them. Winchester &amp; Sons had now become just "Sons", in a way the song's first appearance could only have hinted at.

3) "Don't Fear the Reaper" (Faith)

I'll admit, this is one of my two personal favorite song uses ever in the series. Part of why I loved it is because it fulfilled a cliché – in an episode about Reapers, how can this song not be in it? But it said quite a lot about the events occurring in an episode that would be a turning point for the series. Coming in halfway through S1, this episode built on the increasing emphasis on the Winchester history, and Sam and Dean's bond that had begun explicitly in Bugs, and continued in Home and Scarecrow. Although Sam doesn't say the words until IMToD, the fact is that after Scarecrow, they'd really begun to be brothers again&gt; Both Sam and Dean realized they were going to have to compromise on what they expected of their time together in order to move forward. And now, Sam was about to lose him. In a series where we've had every member of this family making bad decisions when confronted with, not their deaths, but that of one another, they'd have likely been much better off accepting the Reaper than making bad deals. The first verse of the song emphasizes the natural cycle of death, something juxtaposed with the very unnatural use onscreen of the Reaper. The problems began with a wife refusing to let her husband go – just as the problems of the Winchesters begin when Mary won't do the same. Sue-Ann turns to dark magic to make the Reaper save Roy, but then wants to keep using it to pursue her own agenda. Can't imagine what that might be foreshadowing…

4) "Bad Moon Rising" (Devil's Trap/In My Time of Dying)

Pretty much every word in this song is prophetic, for the series as a whole certainly, but fitting enough for its use in S1's amazing climax. Sam and John are arguing about the future, it's just that for Sam it is the immediate future, and for John it's long-term. John had been on the lookout for the end coming soon since the start of the season; it was why he had been so desperate to finish off the YED in some way before Sam's destiny began to play out. But someone was about to die, anyway. As the YED had pointed out in the cabin, Dean had killed his son, and he was about to take an eye for an eye.

5) "Renegade" (Nightshifter)

Who didn't love Renegade in this episode? One of the things that was (as far as I remember) unique about this song's use, was the way in which this song wasn't just commenting on the episode – although it sure did that well -- and wasn't just a fitting background track. This song actually became part of the dialogue as we see Sam and Dean making their way to the parking garage, taking a breath before their escape, just as the song pauses to do the same, Dean utters his line, and then the song resumes. Just as Faith was a key episode in S1, so Nightshifter was in S2. Unlike Faith, it wasn't important because of its contribution to the mytharc, but rather because it set Sam and Dean up with an adversary of their very own, and gave the show new possibilities to build on. Also the 12th episode of the season, this episode was a bit of a break from the series of mytharc related episodes that came before and after. It looked to make Henriksen and the boys' legal problems, an element played with in different episodes up until then, a more serious part of the show. It didn't really happen, which was unfortunate, but that song sure promised something awesome.

5) "Run Through the Jungle" (Sin City)

We've had plenty of songs in bar scenes that were great mood setters (Long Train Running in Dream was one of my favorties). This song seemed to be particularly well chosen for the episode as a whole, however, and is a fitting theme song for Casey, who we are about to meet. This is the first episode where we hear about Lucifer and get an info dump on demons and hell, all of which the song suggests. The last line is both fitting and ominous: ""Let the people know my wisdom, Fill the land with smoke."

6) "Crazy Circles" (Fresh Blood)

Certainly one of my favorite scenes in the whole series, we got a Sam and Dean we hadn't seen for a long time, in, perhaps, the richest bonding scene between the two. This song fit the scene wonderfully in both sound and spirit. Even with the shadow of Dean's death, this was a moment for life. Dean and Sam had, for once, heard one another, and stopped the cycle they were on. Dean had realized Sam wanted openness, and Sam realized Dean needed to prepare him for the worst. The two things came together in both a practical and relaxed way. Through their ups and downs, the boys were meeting in the middle.

7) "Back in Time" (Mystery Spot)

I'm pretty sure "Heat of the Moment" is a song Sam never wants to hear again in his life. In fact, I'd be surprised if it didn't trigger PTSD. I couldn't help thinking there would have been a tremendous irony to the show using Groundhog Day's original tune, "I Got You Babe" (except it would be hard to imagine Dean ever singing along to that unless he was three sheets to the wind). The song's incongruously jaunty sound contrasted with Sam's desperate relief in hearing it. But this song was a signal, not only to Sam but to the audience, that all was well again – for the moment.

8) "We're an American Band" (Ghostfacers)

We have never had a more outsider view of the Winchesters in the series than in this episode, where Sam and Dean don't even appear until a quarter of the way in. And before we see them, we hear them – the rumble of the Impala and the unsubtle blasting of the music. It's a perfect song for Dean, of course: "I got to tell you, poker's his thing, Booze and ladies, keep me right, As long as we can make it to the show tonight." The song about a band on the road, and the memorable things they get up to, even includes a line for the Ghostfacers, as the "Four young chiquitas in Omaha, Waitin' for the band to return from the show." Sam and Dean are the pros, the Ghostfacers dangerously unprepared newbies. But put more simply, the Winchesters are the rock stars of hunters.

9) "Wanted Dead or Alive" (No Rest for the Wicked)/ "Hell's Bells" (Magnificent Seven)

Dead or Alive is, in fact, a very similar song to American Band, in that it's a song about being on the road as a touring musician. But this isn't a song from an outside viewpoint about how cool it is to be part of the band, with its focus on all the people the team runs into in the course of business. This is a song about what it's actually like to be the rock star. "Sometimes I sleep, sometimes it's not for days, And the people I meet always go their separate ways, Sometimes you tell the day By the bottle that you drink, And times when you're all alone all you do is think." This is a fitting song for Sam and Dean to sing at one another, because they've both been there, and the only person who understands what that's like for each of them is the other. Even when they've been together each has been isolated at times, and sick at heart. But the comfort they get from having someone else who understands is about to snap, even as they try to hang on to it for a few more hours.

I also wanted to mention that this is the episode where the season's opening chimes of Hells Bells are matched by the chiming clock at episode's end. Supposedly Dean wasn't going to go to hell originally, but that song ended up being prophetic.

10) "Ready for Love" (Heaven and Hell)

Yeah, I know. This song was rather jarring to me too when it first aired, and I'm not sure I'm any crazier about its placement now. My favorite song use of the season so far is actually "Long Long Way From Home" from ASS because it was so evocative to me, although "Well Respected Man" is an unexpected joy in an atypical episode. But this song actually says a lot more. It's a moment of optimism for Dean, and an expression of his greatest desire, that his dues can be paid, that his hard times are over, and that this new chance at life is more than an illusion. In the face of death, he's reaching for life here, as is Anna. It is a love song, of course, but even more it's a song of hope reaching out from despair, and as such this is more than just a love scene. It's a bookend to the unscored scene of Sam and Ruby in the previous episode, which was the same journey through a different path.

I also have to say that, as someone growing up in the 70s myself, this song definitely hit the "paradise by the dashboard light" sound of that era – so it was pretty fitting that the scene took place in the Impala. (How it was filmed, well, that's another story).


End file.
